


Way Too Much

by skarlatha



Series: How Much? [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drinking & Talking, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:19:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/pseuds/skarlatha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's known for years, but now that Rodney is finally getting a clue, things are suddenly weird between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Way Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> This is the same story as "Not Nearly Enough." This one is from John's POV and the other is from Rodney's. They can stand alone, or they can be read together. Your choice. :)
> 
> Also, this was originally posted several years ago at wraithbait.com, so if it sounds familiar, you probably read it there first.

It's been pretty obvious that Rodney is avoiding me. I have no idea why. For the past few days when we've been in briefings together, he's spent a lot of time not looking at me. Any time he's been required to look my way, he's not meeting my eyes—he's just staring at a spot on my forehead, just where my left eyebrow starts. He probably thinks I don't notice. For a genius, he's pretty dense sometimes.

I wish I knew why he's suddenly so uncomfortable with me. I can't remember anything in particular that I could have done to set him off. There was some bickering between us on our last off-world mission, but it seemed good-natured like always. Surely that's not it. And it's not just that he's having a bad week, because he seems normal with everyone else. My few attempts at finding out what's wrong with him have been spectacularly unsuccessful, so I decide that stronger measures are in order.

Just this morning, I got a shipment of things from Earth on the Daedalus. One of the items I requested was a bottle of whiskey. When I ordered it, I thought I would spread it out, drinking a little bit in my quarters before going to bed at night after a stressful day, but suddenly it sounds like a really swell idea to drink an awful lot of it tonight. In my quarters. With Rodney.

Of course, it's vital to the success of the mission that I drink a lot less than Rodney thinks I do. I can get him to talk when he's drunk, but I can't control the conversation if I'm as wasted as he is. And anyway, it's important that I keep my inconvenient feelings inside. I tend to be a weepy drunk, and I don't want to say the wrong thing to Rodney while I'm impaired.

And the honest truth is that even though I'm every bit the military tough guy on the outside, the very thought of Rodney McKay makes me want to doodle our initials in hearts all over my notebook during study hall. Really, I'm pathetic. Obsessed. In love.

I don't really think of myself as gay. I mean, I'm attracted to men from time to time, but I've never gone beyond admiration from a distance with a man. And if attraction was all there was to this thing with Rodney, it would make everything a lot easier because I could write it off as a product of living in close quarters with a limited supply of people.

But I've been in love with Rodney for... God, how long has it been? Pretty much forever. Ever since I shot him and pushed him off a balcony during our first days in Atlantis. I've been very careful not to let him know, though, although I have no idea how he hasn't noticed anyway. I guess it goes back to the dense genius thing.

Nothing can come of it, anyway, since 1) Rodney isn't gay, 2) I'm not really gay, 3) there's the whole military issue, 4) if it went badly, it would make life here awkward, 5) the beds in our quarters aren't big enough, 6) I'd probably end up strangling him at some point, 7) if I didn't strangle him, he'd probably strangle me, 8) he doesn't seem to have any feelings other than annoyance toward me, 9) my street cred as tough-guy officer would be shot to hell...

I've given this a lot of thought, and it's really better for everyone if I just keep it to myself. But that doesn't mean that I don't want Rodney to be comfortable around me again. If I can't have everything I want, I can at least have his friendship. Surely that's not too much to ask.

 

 

**Evening**  
I walk to the lab on autopilot, not even paying attention to where I'm walking. I go to Rodney's lab so often that I could get there blindfolded without even brushing against a wall. Usually, I even manage to come up with a legitimate reason for being there other than just because I like to watch Rodney work. When I get to the door of the lab, I lean against the door frame, flexing my muscles just enough that they look good but not so much that it's obvious I'm trying. Holy shit, I'm pathetic. Standing here trying to catch his eye like a teenage girl hoping he'll ask me to the homecoming dance. "Working late again?"

Rodney blushes, which is strange, and his eyes dart up and narrow slightly as he sees me. "Keeping Atlantis from certain destruction is a full-time job," he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

I shrug. Shrugging always seems like a good, safe response, especially when I'm trying to act uninterested in Rodney. It's hard to ignore how damn cute he looks, perching there on his lab stool and staring into the numbers on his computer screen, the blue of the interface making his already-blue eyes glow. I force myself to breathe normally as I watch him work. God, I have it bad. The only good thing about this is that he clearly has no idea.

Finally, he looks up at me, scowling. "Is there something in particular I can do for you, Colonel?" he asks.

Fuck yes. I have a sudden, vivid mental image of being bent over one of the desks here in the lab with Rodney buried inside me, my face being pushed into the metal surface with each thrust. I wonder what Rodney's voice sounds like when he's in the middle of fucking someone. Guess I'll never know.

Even more interesting than my thoughts, though, is the fact that all the blood has drained from his face. I desperately want to tease him about what he said, maybe waggle my eyebrows playfully and make an off-color remark, but it's important that I don't jeopardize the mission, so I just reply, "Not really."

The color slowly returns to his face, but he's still staring at my left eyebrow instead of my eyes. "Then what," he demands, "are you doing here?"

Seems like a good time for another nonchalant shrug, so I do it. "What can I say? I'm bored." And I love watching your face as you unravel the secrets of the universe.

"That's wonderful," he says. "I, on the other hand, am busy." He licks his lips absently, and every muscle in my body tightens just a tiny bit at the sight of his tongue.

I push myself off from the door frame and walk slowly toward him. "What are you working on?"

"Nothing you'd understand," he snaps.

It's such a Rodney thing to say, so I smile, but he's not looking at my face, he's looking at my chest. I puff out my pecs ever so slightly, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Can I help?"

Rodney clamps his eyes shut, a vein in his neck pulsing. "No." A flush rises up from the neckline of his shirt, and I can't tell if it's an embarrassed flush or a flush of rage.

"Rodney?" I ask. It's not like him to be this hard to talk to. He spends ninety percent of his time berating people, myself included, so it's strange to have to pull conversation out of him like this. If he wasn't avoiding me, he'd already be two minutes into a technobabble-heavy rant on how stupid I am. But I guess it's a good thing he's not ranting, because every time he launches into a breathless speech about how damn smart he is, it's all I can do not to grab him and experiment with some very satisfying ways to make him stop talking.

"What?" he almost shouts in response to a question I've forgotten I asked, even though it was only a fraction of a second ago that I said his name with a question in my voice.

Flush of rage, then. I decide that the best defense against angry Rodney (or, honestly, against angry anybody, except maybe Kolya or the Wraith) is the patented John Sheppard Smile. It's melted the hearts of many a lady over the years, and surely Rodney isn't totally immune... except that this time it seems to infuriate him further instead of charm him, and I get the distinct impression that he's seriously considering physical violence against me. And still, I have no idea why.

"What do you want?" he says again, a little more softly this time, but with steel in his voice nonetheless. He stares pointedly at his computer screen instead of at me.

Clearly he wants me to go away, but I'm not ready to abort the mission just yet. "I was thinking," I start, drawing the words out to try and sound non-threatening.

He interrupts. "Good for you. Need any pointers? I can imagine how difficult it must be to get in the habit." I should have seen that one coming. Instead of being annoyed, though, I'm just glad he's back to insulting me. He hasn't done that for a while, and I've kind of missed it.

I smirk at him. Smirks are less dangerous than smiles. "I got a bottle of whiskey from Earth on the last Daedalus shipment. I'm looking for someone to help me drink it."

"Ask Teyla," he grunts, which makes me laugh.

"Teyla? Even if she said yes, which she wouldn't, it's no fun to drink while your drinking buddy is oh-so-subtly judging you." And she totally would, too. As much as I like Teyla, she's absolutely not the person I want to spend time drinking with.

I'm not sure how I know that I've made him smile inside. Maybe there's a twitch in the muscles around his mouth. But instead of laughing with me, he says, "How about Ronon, then?"

I wonder if he is just really this dense or if he honestly doesn't want to spend time with me. In any case, I'm not interested in spending time with Ronon, either. "Ronon's on duty in the morning," I say. "Anyway, I thought it would be fun to hang out with you." Among other things. But not tonight. Probably not ever. It's too big of a risk, for both of us. And Rodney hasn't ever really seemed open to the idea, so it doesn't matter anyway.

"Me?" he asks, glancing at me again. "Why me?"

So many reasons to choose from. Because you're adorable. Because you're brilliant. Because I love you. I decide to go with a safer choice, which is just as true as the others but a little less meaningful. "Because you're the most annoying person I've ever met, but at least you're interesting." And then, because I really can't be expected to never show any emotion ever, "Besides, you're my best friend, and you work too hard."

He says, "Okay." Quickly enough that I'm actually surprised to hear it. I thought it would take more cajoling, more John Sheppard Charm, but I'm just happy he's said yes. I walk back toward my quarters, hearing his quick, heavy steps behind me and kind of wishing that he's checking out my ass as we walk.

 

 

**Two hours later**  
Well, part of the plan has gone off without a hitch. Rodney is really drunk, his blue eyes twinkling as he laughs at all my jokes and stories, even the ones that aren't funny. The other part of the plan, though—the part where I pretend to get drunk but don't—isn't working out so well. It started out with my decision to take just one shot to loosen up, then one more because the first one didn't seem to be working, and six or seven shots after that, the walls are spinning when I turn my head.

I tell him a story involving Teyla, Ford, and bat droppings, and his laughter feeds mine until we're both wheezing, gasping for breath. My chest hurts from the prolonged laughter, and I cross my arms across my stomach and lean forward, desperately trying to regain control of myself.

Rodney stumbles over to the window and gazes out over the ocean. He stands there for a long time as we both gradually stop laughing, and then when the laughter is gone completely, he remains there at the window. He looks so lonely there, the moonlight casting shadows on him through the windowframe, and I desperately want to walk up behind him and put my arms around him.

It seems like I should say something, but the whiskey has made me a little unsure of what I was supposed to be talking to Rodney about. I look back up at him. He really does seem lost and alone, but he's so fascinating and larger-than-life that I don't have any doubt he will someday find a woman who will appreciate him.

I, on the other hand, really am alone. Sure, there've been plenty of women—Rodney still won't let me live down the Chaya Incident—but they're all just warm bodies. I could crook my little finger and get hordes of beautiful, willing women to come running at any time. It strikes me as pretty ironic that I could probably have anyone on the station I wanted except the one person I actually do want.

None of the women have cared about me, not really, and I haven't ever really wanted them to. With the exception of Nancy, they've all just been meaningless flings, and it makes me feel less like a douchebag if they felt the same way about me. And even Nancy didn't care enough to stay with me.

I feel my thoughts spiraling down into depression territory, but the alcohol makes it difficult to change the direction of my mind.

Nobody really loves me. Not even Teyla. Teyla loves everybody, but Teyla doesn't love me. Somehow that is the most depressing thought ever, and I let my head fall into my hands, feeling a bit queasy as the movement triggers nausea. I take several deep breaths to steady my stomach.

"What?" Rodney squeaks.

It takes me a minute to realize that I'd said part of my thoughts out loud, the part about Teyla not loving me. "She doesn't love me," I repeat, since there doesn't seem to be much point in resisting. Rodney would just badger me until I repeated myself anyway.

"Do you want her to?"

"No." Of course not, you idiot. I love you. "No," I say again. "That's not the point."

He lets out a small sigh. "Then why does it matter?"

The tiny part of my brain that's still sober desperately tries to shut me up, but the whiskey-impaired majority of my mind wins out, and I answer him. Truthfully, as it happens, but not the whole truth, so help me God. "Who's gonna love me?" I hear myself whisper. "Nobody loves me. Teyla doesn't, Elizabeth doesn't, Chaya didn't, even Nancy and my parents didn't love me." You don't love me, I think, but I manage to keep that part to myself.

My head is still in my hands when I continue, a few moments later. "I agreed to come to Atlantis 'cause I didn't have anyone at home who would care if I was gone forever. And now I don't even have anyone here to care."

That's nonsense, of course, and I know it even as I say it. I know everyone here cares about me. We're all like family, even the newcomers. We've all been through so much together. But I'm replacable. If something happened to me, Stargate Command would just send another officer to take my place, and things wouldn't change all that much. Rodney, on the other hand, is completely irreplacable, and not just to me. It must be nice to have that kind of impact on peoples' lives.

Of course, Rodney is on the same page, and he's calling bullshit on what I said. Typical. "Lots of us care about you," he says, and it's all I can do not to laugh a bitter, sad laugh, because this is Rodney who's saying this to me, and even though friendship is probably all I'll ever have from him, it's not nearly enough.

Maybe, though, if I gave him the opening, he would surprise me with his answer. I pull my head out of my hands and look up at him, for once allowing all my emotion to register on my face. "I just want someone to love me."

His whole body jerks forward just a bit in surprise, and I wonder if maybe he will come over and comfort me the way my whole body wants him to, but then he smirks at me and says, "You're drunk."

I shake my head a little too vigorously, bringing on another wave of nausea. I've always hoped that he wants me, too, but clearly he doesn't. If even as drunk as he is he won't take an opening like that, it's never going to happen. "Doesn't mean it's not true."

Then he stumbles over to the sofa and sits down next to me, far enough away from me that it's clear he's setting some boundaries. "You'll find someone," he says.

And of course I already have found someone, but I can't ever have him, for many, many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he doesn't want me. And suddenly, my brain gets my favorite carefree smile back online, and I level it at him. "Thanks, Rodney." As the seconds of silence stretch into minutes, I grab a pillow and lie down on the couch. "I think I'm just gonna sleep here."

I have the distinct impression that Rodney is trying to say something to me, but I'm already too far gone to really hear him. It's probably for the best.

 

 

**Four hours later**  
I'm dreaming about being back on Earth, walking hand-in-hand with someone and for once not caring who sees us together. Of course it's Rodney—ever since the day we met in Antarctica, I've only ever dreamed about him. It's pathetic, really. We're walking through a carnival, bumping shoulders and laughing, and then I turn and look at his face, mesmerized by the way the multicolored lights of the fair light up his eyes.

He grins at me and pushes me up against the side of a cotton candy booth, his strong hands pinning my arms to my sides as he presses his lips against me. It's not a gentle kiss, and the heat there is incredible, and I give myself up to the unique sensation of not being in charge, of not having to make the decisions and be the strong one. Of finally being just John instead of Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard of the U.S. Air Force, of holding Rodney's hand instead of holding a P-90.

And the dream ends just as all my Rodney dreams do, with Rodney suddenly releasing me and walking away without a backward glance. I whisper "I love you" at his retreating back, and then I wake up in time to hear the door of my quarters close behind the real Rodney.

As I sit up on the couch, running a hand through my hair and blinking furiously, I hear Rodney's running footsteps disappear down the hall. I wonder why he's running? Rodney never runs.

I guess Mission Fix-Things-With-Rodney has turned out to be a complete failure.

 

 

**Lunchtime**  
Rodney is scowling at me when I sit down across from him at his table in the mess hall. If he really doesn't want to be around me, why doesn't he just get up and leave? It's clear from the somewhat squashed appearance of the peas on his tray that he's been just pushing them around for a while.

I wonder what I should say to him. A basic greeting sounds safe. "Morning, Rodney."

"It's afternoon, Colonel," he says, and the obvious use of my title lets me know that he's trying to set boundaries here. Damn. He'll probably never come back to my quarters, ever again, for any reason. Whatever was making him avoid me before is apparently even worse now that I've gone all weepy-little-girl on him.

I decide to go for manly banter. "Yeah, well, it feels like morning." I smile at him, not my charming smile but a wolfish one, showing just a little bit of my teeth. "I've got a wicked headache." He answers with a grunt.

I try again. "You were gone when I woke up." I clamp my mouth shut, horrified that the sentence had come out sounding disappointed instead of conversational.

He takes a deep breath. "Yeah." Then, after a few minutes of silence in which I am trying to work out how to apologize for whatever I've done to upset him, he continues, "Did you know you talk in your sleep?"

I force out a chuckle, pleased that it comes out sounding genuine, but my stomach does a hideous backflip. Luckily, years of military training have made me very good at hiding panic. "I've been told that before," I say. "Why, what did I say?" But I'm pretty sure I know exactly what I said, and I'm just hoping that he has misinterpreted it.

He slams a fork tine into one of the unfortunate peas on his tray, and it sounds like he's really pissed when he says, "Oh, nothing much. You must have been having a Captain Kirk dream, because you were telling some girl that you loved her."

Well, there goes all the panic-hiding training. Keep cool, Sheppard. He thinks you were talking to a girl. That's good. Get rid of that ridiculous blush creeping up your face and snap a smile back on your lips. He's watching me closely, his eyes burning into me like the blue flames at the center of a bonfire, and I know he noticed the momentary lapse in my carefully constructed devil-may-care expression. I mumble something about remembering dreams when people mention them.

"So who was she?" he demands, his voice ugly as he rolls his eyes at me.

"Just someone," I say after pausing for a moment to consider my options.

He glares at me, but he doesn't say anything. Man, he really is pissed. And what's with all these Captain Kirk jabs? They used to be funny, but now they're just irritating. He has no right to be so disgusted by my reputation with women. I mean, I do enjoy a willing woman as much as the next guy (probably more than the next guy, really), but there's more to me than that, and in a perfect world I'd be happily fucking an obnoxious narcissistic scientist every night rather than a bunch of practically faceless women every once in a while. But it's not a perfect world, and I'll be damned if I'm going to live like a monk while I pine over my best friend.

But as I watch him push those stupid peas around his tray, my anger fades. After all, he doesn't know that when I sleep with women these days I'm pretending they're him, that I never touch their breasts or tug on their long hair because it would ruin the fantasy. Even I don't usually admit that to myself. Even though the bodies are different every time, my heart isn't ever fooled.

Oh, gag. I sound incredibly emo. It's a good thing we haven't discovered any Ancient mind-reading devices here, because no one would ever take me seriously as a military officer again after hearing all that drivel. Not that it isn't true, of course, but I'd really rather that my internal monologue didn't sound so much like a trashy Harlequin romance.

"Rodney," I say, pleased that my voice doesn't sound angry or hurt, "about last night... I'm sorry. I get a little weepy when I'm drunk." I smile, but I'm not entirely convinced that he's buying it as a real smile. I push on. "I remember saying something about being sad that no one loves me."

A look of panic crosses his face, and I assume that he's trying to do the manly thing and avoid talking about feelings with another male. "God, Sheppard, do we have to talk about this?"

I search his face for answers to why he's still so upset with me, but I don't find anything there. "No, I guess not." He thanks me and bolts from the table, and I sigh as I watch him go. But at least he's back to calling me Sheppard rather than Colonel. I try to remember whether he's ever called me John. It would sound nice coming from him.

 

 

**Morning**  
The dream tonight is essentially the same—Rodney and I strolling around as a couple, holding hands and kissing—only this time we're on the South Pier of Atlantis instead of at a carnival, and this time the wall he pushes me against when he kisses me is a window to the mess hall (which actually isn't anywhere near the South Pier, but dreams don't make much sense), and everyone inside cheers as our lips meet.

The knock on the door wakes me up in the middle of the best part of the dream: the part where I've given in to Rodney's kiss and start to feel content, loved, needed. My heart is pounding both from the dream and the sudden awakening as I sit up on the edge of my bed and pull on the gym shorts I'd discarded the night before as I fell onto my bed, my cock already in my hands and Rodney's name already on my lips. After a moment of searching, I locate a black tank top, pull it over my head, and stumble over to the door.

My heart surges as I see Rodney standing there, and I blink to make sure this isn't still part of the dream, because the next few minutes are going to go very, very differently depending on whether I'm asleep or not. Finally, I decide that he's real, and the more interesting options fade away, only to be replaced by irritation. "Rodney? What time is it?"

"0500," he says with his characteristic speed and matter-of-factness. "Listen, can we talk for a minute?"

No, goddamn it. I want to go back to bed and will my dream to end differently this time. I don't want whatever he has to say now to spoil the rest of my sleep. "Can't it wait until a decent hour?" I ask finally, rubbing my eyes.

"Isn't this a decent hour? You're military," he says, his words running together as he speaks quickly.

It's not fair. He wakes me up from a dream about him, at just the point when my non-dream body begins to take notice of what's going on in my head, and he stands there in the hallway wanting to talk about God knows what at fucking dawn and then he acts like I should be used to this shit because I'm in the Air Force even though I hate mornings, I really do, and I especially hate being woken up from REM sleep and just because I'm used to it doesn't mean it doesn't royally piss me off. And now the good mood the dream had put me in is totally ruined, and it's all this irritating pudgy jackass's fault and I just want him to leave me alone.

Did I mention that being woken up early puts me in a foul mood?

"Go away." I reach for the door controls, but he barges past me, claiming that this conversation will just take a minute.

He looks around innocently around my quarters and says, "Uh, can I come in?"

"No," I snarl at him. I grab his arm with the same amount of force that Dream-Rodney holds on to my arms every night and shove him back out the door. "Whatever you want to say, you're saying it in the hall, and then I'm going back to bed." Where I can be with you the way I want to be, even if it's not real.

"Fine, it's better this way anyway." He takes in a deep breath and motormouths his way through what he has to say: "You said the other night that no one here loves you. I just wanted you to know that lots of people love you. Everyone here loves you. That's all."

God damn it. His words are useless, ridiculous, not nearly enough, and he's obviously deluded himself into thinking that what I said the other night was some sort of little pity party and that all I need is a playful punch on the shoulder and a hang-in-there-champ speech and it will all be better. "Uh, thanks?" I say, emphasizing the question and hoping that he catches the sarcasm.

And he just keeps talking. "It's just that if anything happens to you, on a mission or whatever, I wanted you to know that you're not alone. You're not unloved."

"I know that people care about me. That wasn't what I meant." I frown at him, wondering what I have to do to make him go away. "I thought you didn't want to talk about this." Especially not at five in the fucking morning.

He keeps talking, and I'm not really listening because I'm sorting through all the military strike strategies that might be useful to make him shut up and leave me alone, but I catch a few words here and there, something about dying on tomorrow's mission and something about a stasis chamber, and then holy shit did he just say what I think he said to me?

"For the rest of your life," he finishes, his voice trailing off.

And all the sudden, it's not only enough, it's way too fucking much, and I just can't deal with it right now. "Jesus, Rodney," I say. "It's too early for this."

And I close the door in his face.

 

 

**Twenty minutes later**  
But I can't sleep, not after a bombshell like that, and after twenty minutes of lying on my narrow, cold bed staring at the ceiling and feeling equal parts exhilirated and really fucking pissed off, I decide that the best course of action, at least for the moment, is pain.

So I radio Ronon and ask if he wants to go for our daily run a little early today. He doesn't sound at all like it's before dawn, and he's always happy to work out, so we meet up in a lesser-used part of the city and start to run. The pace feels slow today, even though it's our usual strenuous pace, and so I gradually speed up until the speed is brutal, punishing, only a small step below batshit insane, and I try to focus on the sound of our feet pounding against the floor and Ronon's heavy breathing beside me, but it's not really helping my mood, and it's sure as hell not taking my mind off The Rodney Thing.

As we round a corner, I slow down to a walk. Ronon is out of breath, although not as much as I am, and he's looking at me with a strange look on his face. "Well, Sheppard, that was interesting. We haven't gone that fast since you were half-bug. We done?"

But the reason I stopped isn't because I'm done working out. I'm just done running. It's not doing its job to cheer me up. No, I don't need to run anymore. What I need to do is beat the hell out of something with a big fucking stick. I glance over at Ronon, sizing him up. Yes, he'll do nicely. "Nope. Wanna go spar in the gym?"

"Sure," he says, and he spends the next twenty minutes fending off my unusually vicious attacks. After I take a swing at his head and almost connect, he says, "What's eating you, Sheppard?"

There's no way I'm going to talk about my feelings with a three-hundred-pounds-of-muscle dreadlocked alien, so I pretend innocence. "Nothing, why?"

He smirks at me. "Well, not asking you to go easy on me, but I'd rather not fight to the death."

"Sorry," I say. "A lot on my mind."

"Like what?" he says, and I wonder if he knows somehow.

"Lots of stuff," I answer. "Nothing major."

"People who have a lot of little things on their mind don't try to behead a friend with a blunt object while working out," he points out. "You've got a lot of rage."

Well, I've got a lot of something. Rage might be it. It also might be patheticness or lovesickness or the-guy-I'm-lusting-over-said-he-loves-me-holy-shit-ness. At this point, I'm not really sure. And I don't know why I'm so damn angry about this. Maybe it's that there's a difference between wanting something in a purely philosophical fashion and actually dealing with taking it in the real world. Maybe it's that part of me knows this whole thing with Rodney is impossible and can't possibly go well. Maybe it's that I know how much is at stake here with Rodney... if we go there and it doesn't work out, there's no going back to the way our friendship is now. Or was, two hours ago.

Ronon's looking at me like he really does care what's wrong, and so I say, hesitantly, "It's McKay."

He throws back his head and laughs. "About damn time."

"What do you mean?"

"It's obvious to everyone that it's only a matter of time before you guys hook up."

"Obvious... to everyone?" I say, my mouth hanging open after the words are done coming out.

"Yep," he says, dropping back down into his fighting stance. I follow suit, and we circle each other for a minute. "So what happened?"

"He... uh, he sort of came to my room... and told me he loved me," I answer, speaking quickly so I don't lose my nerve.

"So why aren't you still in your room fucking him like crazy?"

It strikes me as a little odd that he's so sure that I return the sentiment (or at least the attraction) that he doesn't bother asking, but Ronon's never been one to waste words on things he already knows. "It's not that simple."

"Are you a virgin?" he asks, grinning at me and straightening back up.

I roll my eyes. "Sure, Ronon, I'm a virgin. All those women are totally covers. We sit up in my room and play chess until it seems like it's been long enough for her to leave."

"No, I know you've had sex. But have you done it with a man?"

"That's none of your damn business." Because really, it isn't.

His grin widens. "That's a no. Listen, man, it's nothing to worry about. It's just a little weird at first, but you get over it."

"That's it. We're done with this topic. Are you gonna fight me or what?"

"Nope. Don't want to tire you out before tonight."

I take a sudden swing at his head with the sparring sticks, but he just laughs and blocks me easily.

"Do you wanna take a test run?" He's watching me, but he's carefully not looking at my face.

I'm in the middle of dashing at him when he says this, and I stumble. "What?"

"If you want to practice before the big hunt, just so you don't embarrass yourself with McKay," he says, "I'm available."

"Practice as in have sex? With you?" I say, still stunned enough that my voice comes out a little squeaky.

"Listen, it's no big deal, man. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. Just thought I'd offer."

I stand there and stare at him for a few seconds, trying to gauge the situation. Sure, I've thought about fucking Ronon before. He's an attractive guy, and I could have sex with him one night and go on a totally normal mission the next day. A total buddy-fuck. And honestly, if I wasn't so disgustingly head-over-heels in love with someone else, I would probably do it. But the women I can excuse because I'm not the kind of guy who can be celibate—somehow screwing another man would feel like cheating on Rodney. The least I can do is be gay-pure for him in the unlikely event that something does happen between us.

Holy fucking shit. This sentimental crap is getting out of hand.

But Ronon's still standing there, and even though he's not an idiot and he knows I've already said no even though I haven't said it out loud, he deserves a response. "I can't."

"Yeah, I didn't think so," he says, smiling to let me know there won't be any hard feelings. "You're such a sap, Sheppard."

And with that, I finally get a good whack in with the sparring stick and storm out of the room. That's what I get for opening up to a Neanderthal.

 

 

**Afternoon**  
The planet we've been exploring today is just more of the same: agrarian society, backwards religious views, prone to panic attacks about the Wraith, that kind of thing. They don't have much to offer us, and they don't seem that interested in what we have to offer them, so we head back to the Stargate to find a herd of vaguely bovine creatures browsing peacefully around the DHD. Ronon strides up to them to try and shoo them away, but they seem like the kind of animals who'd be really vicious if provoked, so he backs off.

Teyla stops him from firing his gun at the animals. The locals worship them, she points out, and even though we don't need anything from them now, we shouldn't burn our bridges by killing their gods. So the only thing for it is to wait for the creatures to finish eating and move on. Teyla and I sit down on a rock in the field while Ronon paces back and forth, alternately shouting at the cows and kicking rocks angrily in their direction.

Teyla reaches down and picks some wildflowers growing near the rock we're sitting on. "Ronon tells me that you and Dr. McKay are involved."

I begin plotting Ronon's immediate and painful death. Guns are too quick. I wonder if I could find another Iratus bug for him without, you know, turning into one myself. I hate those bugs. "We're not involved," I grind out.

"Why not?"

I'm not talking about my feelings again. I know I said that earlier and changed my mind, but I've learned my lesson, so I stay silent, hoping she'll give up and go kick a cow or something.

But this is Teyla, and she's on my team for... why is she on my team again? I know there's a good reason for it, but it's hard to remember when she's badgering me about my love life. Not that two simple questions constitutes badgering, but I know there are more where those came from.

And I'm right. "Ronon said that Rodney confessed his love for you this morning."

"Yeah," I say, hoping that short answers will discourage her even if silence didn't seem to.

"Did you respond?"

"He woke me up. I was cranky."

"It is clear that you love him," she says, and I feel myself actually flinch at hearing the words out loud. How am I ever going to feel masculine again after this? Just because I'm such a sentimental idiot where Rodney is concerned doesn't mean that my macho soldier side isn't real, too.

I shake my head and kick at a thistle-like plant near the rock, feeling a perverse satisfaction when my boot digs it out of the ground. "It's not that simple." Jesus Christ, I feel like I'm saying that a lot today.

"It seems very simple to me," she replies, smiling. "Love is precious, and when we find it, we should hold on to it with everything we have."

"Thanks a lot, Dr. Phil," I say, letting a little of the angry edge into my voice.

She ignores the pop culture reference. "You should talk to him."

"Fine, I'll talk to him," I say, dragging out the a-sound in 'talk.'

"Would you like me to talk to him first?"

I don't see why Rodney should get to avoid the inquisition, so I nod. "Thanks, Teyla."

Suddenly, a huge ball of red fire erupts from Ronon's gun and sends the animals galloping away from the DHD. "Stupid fucking cows!" he shouts, and we go home.

 

**Early Evening**  
I know he's in the gate room the moment I step through back into Atlantis. That's one of the strange side effects of being in love with someone as full of energy as Rodney—I'm always aware of him. Teyla senses the presence of the Wraith; I sense the presence of McKay. I know I should speak to him, or at least smile at him as I walk past, but I don't know what to say. In all the time I've been in love with him, I've never played out this moment in my head, which is strange for all the time I spend plotting strategy for everything.

But he's skulking there in the shadows watching me, and I pretend I don't see him as I swing my gun forward and run lightly up the stairs to the debriefing room. Teyla, Ronon, and I give a short rundown of what happened on the planet (=nothing) and as we stand up to leave, Elizabeth calls to me to wait for a minute.

I turn and look at her, smiling and raising an eyebrow. "What can I do for you, Dr. Weir?" I say, drawling out the words and trying to seem charming so that whatever she wants to talk about will go over more smoothly. And I'm pretty sure I know what she wants to talk about. It feels like everybody on the station has something to say about the whole McKay/Sheppard thing. Oh my god, if we do get together, will they start calling us McShep? Jesus fucking Christ.

She returns my smile, a strange little twinkle in her eye, and leads me out onto the balcony behind the central command room. "So," she begins.

"Sooo," I repeat, a playful edge in my voice.

"Rodney was here earlier asking about the mission," she says.

"Oh really?" I say. Really, there's no other response. Not until I know where she's going with this, anyway, and it just doesn't seem like Rodney to bare his soul to Elizabeth. He never bares his soul to anyone.

"John," she says. "We both know what I'm talking about here."

Fuck. Of course we do. I allow my protective smile to fade. "It's nothing."

"Is it really?"

I pause for a moment, searching her eyes to see how she feels about all this. "It's too much," I finally answer.

"Too much?"

"Way too much." I close my eyes, trying to keep it together. "There's too much at stake here."

"If you mean your career," she says, using her most soothing voice as if I'm a little kid who needs a hug, "I can assure you that I won't tell a soul."

I snort with laughter. "It's not that."

"What are you going to do?" she presses.

"Nothing," I respond, my eyes narrowing. Really, this is none of her damn business, and as much as I respect her as leader of this expedition, she doesn't have a a degree in psychology or anything, so if she thinks I'm going to break down and cry her a river here on her balcony, she's sadly mistaken. I may be a mess of girly emotion inside, but I'm still the ranking military officer on this base, and...

"He deserves an answer," she says, interrupting my thoughts.

"He didn't ask a question," I snap. "And anyway, this is between me and Rodney, and with all due respect I'd be glad if you would just drop it right now."

She flinches just slightly, but recovers. "Do you love him?"

It's like talking to Teyla all over again, and I'm really starting to get annoyed with all this fucking talking. "Oh, for the love of..."

"Do you love him?" she asks again, louder this time.

"No!" I shout, ignoring the sad, betrayed little piece of my heart that doesn't like this answer.

"You're not fooling anyone, John." She says, somehow managing to sound both stern and sympathetic as she continues, "What's at stake? What's too much?"

"It's all too much," I growl.

"I'm gonna need a better answer than that."

"Well, you're not gonna get one," I say, using my John Sheppard Dangerous Voice.

"What's at stake?" she says again. She can be like a pit bull when she latches onto something, and while it's admirable in general, it's pretty damn annoying when it's me she's latched onto.

"Everything," I say, finally.

She hesitates, clearly gauging how much more she can push before I explode. Or break. "Everything," she says at last, and even though it sounds like a statement, it's obvious that it's really yet another question.

"I've felt... this way... for a long time," I admit, "and he's never cared before." Yep, I'll definitely break before I explode.

She can see it, too, so she prods a bit more. "I think he's cared for longer than you think."

A bitter laugh escapes my lips. "I'm done with this conversation," I announce yet again, turning to leave.

Again, she calls out after me. "What are you afraid of, John?"

I repress my knee-jerk reaction to yell at her that I'm not afraid, but then I realize that I am, which takes me by surprise. Finally, I turn back to her and say, very softly, "This is... important to me."

"Yes, I can see that," she murmurs.

"He'll leave me," I say. "Maybe not now, but eventually. He'll leave me and it will break me, and I'll lose everything." I know I've shocked her; I can see it in her eyes. Who would have thought that Lt. Col. Sheppard would turn out to be such a softy?

"Maybe not," she says. "You won't know unless you talk to him."

"Whoever said that 'loved and lost' thing is full of shit," I hiss. Yes, hiss. Like a snake. "I'd rather just keep on being friends than have more and then lose it."

She doesn't say anything for a long time, and then she finally repeats herself. "You need to talk to him."

"I know," I say.

"Why don't you take Jumper 2 out for a spin to the mainland tonight? Ask Rodney to go with you."

"No," I say. "Thanks, though."

"John," she warns, clearly exasperated, "don't make me make this an order. Be a big boy and talk to McKay. It will be okay."

 

 

**Nighttime Again**  
I've never walked so slowly to the lab before. I feel panic clawing at my insides, and it's all I can do not to bolt to my quarters and hide there until I can request a transfer back to Earth, never mind that I love Atlantis and under normal circumstances wouldn't ever want to leave.

Just like before, I stand in the doorway, leaning against the frame of the door, and watch Rodney for a few minutes without saying anything. As I stand there, a flush of color rises from the neckline of his shirt and washes slowly over his face, so I know he knows I'm there. "We need to talk," I say, keeping my voice soft and low.

He glances up at me for the briefest moment. "I know."

"Elizabeth suggested that I go for a ride to the mainland in Jumper 2. Want to come along?" I watch his face carefully as I ask the question, hoping he'll say no. And he does, spitting the word out with a little too much force.

And in the end, it's the sinking feeling I have in my stomach and the painful clench at my heart as he tells me no that makes me realize that this is real, that this is the most important moment of my life. That this is worth the risk. So I put my hand on his shoulder, marveling at the delicious shiver that runs through him at my touch, and whisper, "Please, Rodney."

 

 

**Midnight**  
The ride to the mainland is relatively short, but it's completely, utterly silent. I know he's waiting for me to start the conversation, which is only fair considering that it's my turn to respond. But before we start talking about this, I want to be out of the city, out of the jumper. I want it to just be me, Rodney, and the stars.

I land the jumper in a field several miles from the Athosian settlement and walk out. When I reach a large patch of moss, I stop and sit down. Moss is soft, and just in case something happens out here tonight, we need something soft to lie on. I should have brought a blanket, but that would have seemed really cocky, so I'm glad I forgot it.

He sits down beside me, and I can feel the energy leaping between us. I've always wanted him, but this is the first time I've been able to tell that he wants me, too. It's pretty thrilling.

What's not thrilling is that I'm sitting here remembering the first time I asked a girl out, and that I feel just like that again now. The queasy, breathless anticipation as I waited for her answer, wondering just how soon after we started going out I'd be able to get to first base. Since that day, I've left a trail of broken hearts and rumpled sheets behind me, and it's been years since I felt an attack of nerves at the beginning of a relationship.

Maybe it's different, having a relationship with a man. I wonder if Rodney knows. I'd never thought of him as gay before, but then I'd never known he had a thing for me, either. If I had, I'd have jumped him months ago. Well, only one way to find out. "Have you had many relationships with men?"

He jumps and whips his head around to look at me, and it's only then that I realize how weird it was to start off this conversation like that. But after a couple of seconds, he says, "No. None."

Well, so much for relying on him to help figure out how to deal with this. "Me either," I say, because it's important that he knows how big a deal this is for me. He doesn't say anything for a while.

Before this conversation goes any further, though, it's probably a good idea to make sure I hadn't misunderstood him this morning. I wasn't paying very close attention to him as he babbled on about stasis chambers, after all. "I was pretty groggy this morning," I say, figuring that blaming it on grogginess is better than just telling him I'd been tuning him out, "so I want to make sure we're on the same page. Just so we're clear, when you came to my room this morning, it seemed like you were trying to say that you..." My voice trails off. I never thought I'd be saying the l-word out loud in relation to me and Rodney, and it's as weird as it is exhilirating. "That you love me," I finish.

"Yes," he says, and it's all I can do not to pull him into my arms and kiss him like it's the end of the world.

But he looks panicked, like he's about half a second away from tearing off into the trees, and so I hold back. "And you meant that?" I ask, because if he meant it as I-love-you-man rather than I-love-you-John, none of this even matters.

"Absolutely. Do you think I would say it if I didn't mean it?" he says, quickly, like the old Rodney. I half-expect him to call me an idiot, and the thought of Rodney telling me how smart he is while we're wrapped up in each other's arms makes me hard.

"Probably not," I say, gleefully imagining the physics- and math-related pillow talk I have to look forward to. If, that is, he wants to go anywhere with this. He may not want to actually start a relationship—I should find out. "So what now?"

He laughs, a little bit of hysteria in the sound. "That depends entirely on how you feel. I've put myself out there. It's up to you to decide where to go with it."

I know exactly where I want to go with it: first to my quarters for about a week. Or his quarters. Or the physics lab or the mess hall or the floor of the fucking gate room. It doesn't really matter to me. But, more importantly, I want to go on into the future with Rodney at my side, probably telling me what a brainless idiot I am every single day with his lips while his eyes tell me that he doesn't really believe it.

And I really, really want to go to a carnival with him. Maybe someday that will happen. It reminds me of the dream, which reminds me that I still haven't told him the most important thing. "It was you," I say, then I continue as he looks at me, confused, asking for clarification. "When you were in my quarters that night and I told someone I loved them in my sleep. It was you."

His breath catches and his eyes brighten, and even in the moonlight I can see how blue they are. I wonder how blue they look in the sunshine—I've never allowed myself to look that closely in case he was sharp enough to see right through me if our eyes met for that long.

Finally, he says, "Did you mean it?"

You'd think that a certified genius like Rodney wouldn't even have to ask, but apparently being a member of Mensa doesn't automatically translate into having a lot of perceptive abilities. I don't trust myself to speak at this very moment, though, so I just smile at him.

I feel him move his hand so that it just brushes mine in the moss between us, and my pulse speeds up. For the first time, I feel like I can have this, I really can, and if he leaves me in the future at least I will have had tonight. I cover his hand with mine, loving the way his skin feels under my fingertips.

And then he leans over, and I know he wants to kiss me, but I'm afraid of giving in to the kiss because I don't know if I can hold myself back once our lips meet. This is love, yes, pure and true and all that drivel, but there's a hell of a lot of pent-up lust involved, too, and I just don't think he's ready for everything that I'm ready for. Not yet. I close my eyes.

He puts his hand on my cheek, his breath coming in small pants, and brushes my eyelashes with his thumb. Then he pulls my face toward him and asks, "Is this okay?" as if he's really worried that I'm going to have a homophobic freak-out and beat the shit out of him. Dense genius again. If he just looked down, he'd see how incredibly okay this is. But instead of jumping him, I figure I'll let him take the lead. After all, part of the appeal of being with Rodney is the idea of letting him take charge. So I just nod.

When his lips touch mine, I feel an energy surge so massive and powerful that it probably registers on Atlantis's long-range sensors. I feel his hand move around to my back and run over my muscles, and I've never been so deliriously grateful that I'm in good shape as I do right now, feeling Rodney shiver with lust as he touches me.

And because I haven't said it, not really, I pull my lips from his just enough to say, "I love you."

"I love you more," he says, and it's just so incredibly Rodney that I laugh.

"You always have to one-up everyone around you, McKay," I say, keeping my lips close enough that they rub against his while I speak.

He drags his lips against my cheek, and I wonder what it feels like to kiss a rough face rather than a smooth one. I'll find out soon enough. "What can I say?" he says, smiling. "It's in my nature."

All at once, it's obvious to me that whatever he's feeling for me isn't a new thing for him, no matter how recently he decided to vocalize his feelings. I wonder when it started for him. "How long?" I ask.

"Well, I haven't actually measured it since college..." he says, and I smile, letting myself gaze into his eyes.

I know he's just making a joke rather than actually deflecting the question, but I want to make sure he really does answer it. Besides, it really doesn't matter whether he answers his interpretation of the question or not. I get the distinct impression that I'm about to find out the answer for myself. So I rephrase. "How long have you felt this way, Rodney?"

He answers quickly, and I can tell he's already given this a lot of thought. "I've been interested in you since Antarctica, and I've loved you platonically since the incident with the bug on the jumper. I think I fell all the way when you had that thing with Chaya, because I was more jealous than I had any right to be. I only realized all this after you talked in your sleep, though." He smiles, putting his hand on my neck, and asks me the same question. "How about you?"

Oh god, if he only knew. Sometimes I feel like I've loved him my entire life, even before I met him. Even before I knew he existed. "Forever," I breathe, and I lean forward and kiss him again. "I've always had a soft spot for you, but I knew for sure when you blew up that solar system and we both nearly died." Which isn't true, strictly speaking, since I've known for sure for a long time. But it's also not untrue, because the Project Arcturus thing was when I finally admitted it to myself. Knowing something and admitting it to yourself are entirely different things.

Plus, mentioning the Arcturus incident and claiming he blew up a whole solar system has an added bonus in the form of irritating him, which will never stop being fun for me. I start counting silently in my head, and I'm only up to two when he corrects me. "Five-sixths of a solar system."

"Whatever," I growl, letting my arms slide around him and pulling him against me, loving the way his body feels beside mine.

After a few moments, he says, "If you've known for a while, why didn't you say anything?"

I pull away again and look him in the eyes, and I tell him the truth. "I've got a lot to lose here. I wasn't going to risk it unless I was sure you felt the same."

"If you can't take the chance," he croaks, "I understand." It's not hard to miss the sub-text here. Fuck the military, always making things difficult. I'd miss my job if they discharged me for this, but Elizabeth would find something non-military for me to do on Atlantis. Maybe I could come out of the math-geek closet, too, while I'm at it. And then maybe I'd get to work with Rodney every day, looking into his eyes as he works and watching the universe make sense to him as it doesn't make sense to anyone else. Everything is going to work out just fine, either way.

So I chuckle a little and run my fingers over his face. "I wouldn't take the chance if I wasn't sure it was worth it."

"And I'm worth it?" he asks, sounding incredulous, like I'm the star quarterback and he's the ugly fat chick with braces.

"Oh, McKay," I breathe, "you have no idea."

After a few more moments of light, teasing kisses, he says with a quiver in his voice, "You know, I've been dreaming about you." He kisses me, and another jolt of energy runs through me.

Ah. Suddenly I understand why he's been avoiding me, why he hasn't been meeting my eyes, why he has been blushing and stammering at inappropriate times when he's been around me. This must have been an interesting dream indeed, and I need to know all about it. "Tell me what you dreamed."

But it's clear after a few seconds that he's just not going to be able to vocalize it, and I don't want to push him, so when he admits that he can't explain it, I offer him another option, finding the bottom of his shirt and pulling it up over his head. "Show me, then," I say, and I start pulling off my clothes, going from fully-dressed to naked in ten seconds flat. Rodney follows suit, a little clumsily, and I try not to stare at him in case he's feeling self-conscious. And also because it's kind of gross to drool while kissing.

We lie back on the soft moss, hungrily devouring each other's mouths. I let my hands drift over his skin, wondering if he's feeling the electricity between us like I do. I can almost literally feel sparks between us. I don't touch him like I want to because he still seems so skittish, and I realize that even though he feels the same way I do, he's a lot less used to it than I am. After all, I've had two years to imagine this. He's had maybe a week, at most.

And then, suddenly, I feel his fingers wrap around my cock, and I only barely stop myself from clamping my teeth together and hissing with pleasure, which would be bad because his tongue is currently between my teeth, and I certainly don't want anything bad to happen to his tongue. Maybe we should take out some sort of insurance policy on it.

But I absolutely have to stop thinking about his tongue, and I certainly can't think about how the moss would smell if I was face-down in it, my nose digging into the soft dirt below it over and over again. Because if Rodney is still skittish about just touching me, he's certainly not going to be ready to actually fuck me tonight. And it might be weeks before I can fuck him without worrying that he's not ready for it yet. So for tonight, this is all that's going to happen.

And I'm more than okay with that, because his hand is moving up and down on me, at just the right speed and just the right amount of pressure, and it's easily the best this has ever felt, ever, because he knows what feels good and what feels better and what feels just fucking amazing, and I don't have to coach him or reassure him or beg him to finish. I realize that I'm speaking, but I'm not sure that the words are English, or even that they're really words at all, and it's really hard to care when he's touching me like this. I grind myself into his hand a few more times, then I grunt his name and let go, feeling the hot liquid shooting into his hand and onto the moss between us.

When it's over, I pull him so close that my softening cock presses into his stomach and his still-straining one presses into mine, and it's so fucking sexy that I can feel myself already starting to harden up again even though it's only been a few seconds. I bury my face in his neck and struggle to breathe normally because I know he needs this, too.

After a few minutes, I've come down enough to return the favor. "Your turn," I say, reaching down to grasp him, hoping that all my military training hasn't made my hands too rough for this. But it doesn't seem to be a problem, because clearly he's already on the edge, maybe because jerking me off was as erotic for him as touching him is for me right now. It takes less than a minute for him to shout my name—John, finally John—and I arch my body toward his so that when he goes, I will feel it on my stomach. And when it happens, I have never felt so ridiculously proud of myself during sex as I do right now.

He leans in to kiss me, whispering an apology for being done so soon, and I wipe my hand on the moss, just barely resisting the urge to bring my fingers to my mouth. That's for later, too, after the lingering awkwardness has passed. There's so much time now—time for everything we want there to be time for. I laugh, looking into his eyes. "Don't worry about it. We have the rest of our lives to get it right."

But instead of smiling or kissing me, he frowns, and I can just see the gears in his head turning, and knowing Rodney he's already pages-deep into the equations required to invent some sort of immortality device so we can be together literally forever. And if he can manage that, it's okay with me.


End file.
